Thoughts on the military and military activities of a diverse nature. Free-ranging and eclectic.

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Assad & ISIL.

This is coolbert:

We have all heard the adage that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". But this is ridiculous. That number of combatants and factions in the Syrian civil war from moment to moment changing and in inexplicable ways.

"Fighters opposing the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, have made the same claims since Sunday, when Isis began advancing towards the town of Azaz near the Turkish border."

"The seizure of Azaz, 20 miles north-west of Aleppo, would imperil the main opposition supply line into Syria’s biggest city, the rebel-held east of which has been besieged by government forces for more than two years."

"Syrian insurgents rushed reinforcements into combat on Tuesday against rival Islamic State militants who have seized crucial territory near the northern city of Aleppo in recent days, building on the momentum the group has achieved in other battlefield successes in Syria and Iraq. Amid increased fears that Aleppo could be the next big prize to fall to the Islamic State in the latest twist to the four-year-old Syrian civil war, Syrian opposition leaders accused the government of essentially collaborating with the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, by bombing other rival insurgent groups"

Those "opposition groups" as styled with a western orientation and democratic [to the extent anything in the Middle East can be characterized as democratic] simultaneously in conflict with the regime in Damascus and ISIL. HAVING TO FIGHT IN TWO DIRECTIONS AT THE SAME TIME AND NOT HAVING THE WHEREWITHAL TO DO SO!